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CEBU CITY, Philippines – Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia just smiled but would not confirm or deny reports that the Cebu provincial government withheld the allowances of two Regional Trial Court (RTC) judges this month.
“No comment,” she said.
“The judges did not comment about it, so I have no comment. I have more important things to attend to,” she told Cebu Daily News (CDN).
She called the report a “rumor.”
A closed-door meeting among the judges was held last Friday to discuss the reported non-release of a P6,000 monthly allowance to two judges, one of whom had dismissed a case filed by the Province of Cebu against Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
The monthly allowance is directly given by the provincial government through individual ATM accounts of judges of the Regional Trial Court and Municipal Trial Court in Cities within Cebu.
Cebu RTC Executive Judge Silvestre Maamo would not give details about the meeting held in the RTC library, which followed a private meeting with the governor in her Capitol office at noon last Friday.
He said the judges agreed to stay mum about their discussion.
Reliable sources said the affected judges were RTC Bienvenido Saniel of Cebu City RTC branch 20 and a judge from a southern RTC.
Judge Saniel earlier dismissed a complaint filed by the Cebu provincial government questioning Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s appointment of members to the Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) board.
The southern RTC judge also reportedly dismissed complaints filed by Governor Garcia against a former politician and a broadcaster.
“I will not dignify that rumor,” the governor said.
“There are things that matters most and there are things that people care about, especially for their children to have a place to study in and for water to flow into their houses,” Garcia told CDN.
Garcia was referring to classrooms the province built for a national high school in a northern Cebu town.
Last year, Mayor Osmeña also allegedly ordered the withdrawal of the city’s allowance for Judge Ramon Codilla who had ordered the release of vehicles impounded by the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom).
Meanwhile, the Cebu City government will go ahead and give two laptop computers to the family court of RTC Branch 14 based in the Palace of Justice and to other judges.
Councilor Hilario Davide III previously filed a resolution approved by the mayor's office that requested the purchase of two laptop computers for the office of RTC-7 Judge Rafael Yrastorza of Branch 14.
Davide said the court has a backlog of 900 cases and needs the computers to speed up the resolution of the cases. Each laptop costs P60,000 and will be sourced from Pagcor’s regular donation to the city.
However, Councilor Roberto Cabarrubias of the city's south district said the additional laptop computers for the judges would not be available this year and was not included in the 2009 proposed budget.
He said it may be included in the supplemental budget for next year. /With a report from Correspondent Chris Ligan
